As my taxi driver fights his way through the appalling London traffic to Fulham, there is plenty of time to study the press release about Jason Drummond. It says that he is 29, has been in business since the age of 15 and founded something called Virtual Internet.net three years ago. The accompanying faxed photograph makes him look a little plump. At least his picture cheers me up because what the press release fails to mention is that Drummond’s 70pc shareholding is worth more than £35m. Yes, that’s thirty-five million pounds. It is enough to make you feel instantly depressed. But he’s six years younger than me, I wail to my cab driver who reckons Drummond’s story sounds “bloody unbelievable”. Just to make things worse, the covering note from his PR girl describes him as “an amazing entrepreneur”. She gushes : “Jason is something of a rarity. young, dynamic, with an incredible background- and a genuinely nice guy!” It has to be too good to be true, I think. Drummond is tapping away on his laptop when I finally arrive at the company’s open-plan office where the walls are painted a funky bright blue colour. He is the only one wearing a shirt and tie. Everyone else dons a geek-chic uniform of combat trousers and trainers and they are surfing away happily on their computers. It feels young, hip and just how you imagine an internet company would be. He immediately shows me into a small meeting room and before I can ask him what actually is Virtual Internet.net, Drummond begins telling me. He talks very, very fast, breaking off only to grab some corporate literature. I learn that Virtual Internet.net registers company names on the internet, acts as a host on company web- sites, provides e-commerce and e-mail services. Er, I think I get it. Anyway, its clients include CNN, Warner Brothers, Ford, Chrysler, Burger King and Nestlé. Drummond recently bought a company called Net Searchers, which specialises in protecting intellectual property, brands and trademarks on the internet, and he boasts that it works for 42 companies in the FTSE and 17 out of the top 20 British law firms.
So how did he come up with such a great idea? “That’s a good point,” he says. “I’ve always looked for opportunities and I’ve always had successful businesses. I could see that the internet was going to grow massively, so clearly having your own identity on the internet seemed to me to be very obvious. then looked around and realised that no-one was actually providing the service. “Really from day one, it was incredibly successful. The ISPs [internet service providers] have suddenly realised that domain names are quite important,” he says, starting to laugh. “But it’s too late because we’ve built the market. We’re the largest in the UK, if not Europe…” However, Drummond is keen to point out he isn’t a computer nerd. “People assume that I was involved in programming, but I wasn’t,” he says. “I’m fairly technically minded but I’m not a technician.” Actually, Drummond is a salesman or, as he describes it : “I’ve always been very much the customer interfacing type person.” He adds : “What’s quite interesting is that I’m not the classic sales person.” What is that? I ask. “Oh,” he replies. “Very over the top, very ‘sales-y.’ If I don’t think it’s the right deal for a customer, then I won’t try and sell it.” Don’t all great salesmen say this? Drummond also claims that Virtual Internet.net is profitable, although the latest accounts (published in December when an Aim- listed cash shell called Charriol reversed into Virtual Internet.net) show it making a pre-tax loss of £32,000 for the year ending October.
Despite this, the company is capitalised at more than £50m – or an incredible 100 times last year’s sales. So either the market is convinced that it is growing spectacularly fast, or it shows that investors go absolutely crazy at the mere mention of the word ‘internet’ or when they spot a .com. Virtual Internet.net has both. Drummond’s own insight into this great debate is that there’ll be winners and losers on the net and, unsurprisingly, he believes that Virtual Internet.net will be among the winners. From the way Drummond tells it, he’s been winning for years. He grew up in Fulham, the middle son of three boys and went to a comprehensive school in Shepherd’s Bush where he wasn’t particularly academic. At 15, he set up his first company, called Micromax, which sold computer software through local newsagents. “When I was younger, I just had this idea that I wanted to be a businessman,” he says. “We didn’t have much family money, although we lived in Fulham. We were a single parent family. Although we had a nice house, we didn’t have much money knocking around.” Drummond later admits that his father is an architect. “I don’t see him much,” he says. How did he get the money to set up Micromax? “Paper rounds,’ he replies. “The usual sort of things. I had umpteen paper rounds locally and I saved money that way. I remember selling old batteries at school. You know, on Fridays when you were allowed to bring toys into school?” I let that one pass and ask whether everyone thought he was precocious. “I don’t think anyone really knew what I was doing,” he says. “I just sort of wandered off on Saturday morning with a big box full of computer software and went round the newsagents, restocking the shelves.” He adds : “I think my mum just went along with it. Nothing really seemed to surprise her – even to the extent of going public and everything else…” He ran the company for a couple of years, stopping in order to take some O-levels and study for his four A-levels. I’m intrigued to know how much money he made. “A few thousand pounds. It wasn’t much,” he replies, before pausing for a second. “Well, I suppose it was at that time.” Drummond invested the money in Amstrad shares. “I bought them at 20p and sold them at 290p or 280p a month before the stock market crash in 1987,” he declares. So he predicted the market was going to crash? “No, no,” he replies. “I needed the money to start a business.” His next company sold fax machines. “I seem to remember buying quite a nice car too,” he adds. It was a white Golf convertible. Two years later he accidentally crashed it into a car driven by a BA air hostess called Jackie, seven years his senior. “I think the first thing she said to me was rude and I thought ‘that’s the girl for me’.” They have been married for seven years and have two children, Matthew and Phoebe. “I’ve done quite a lot,” he says. It is a bit of an understatement. There was also three years in South Africa and Russia where he ran what he describes as “new media companies”. He adds : “I think, for me, one of my key drivers is just wanting to have choices. It’s not about the money. If I want to do something, I can just do it. Business gives me the ability to create money to give me choices.” So just how ambitious is he? Does he want to take Virtual Internet.net into the FTSE 100? “Oh yeah,” he exclaims. “And the rest. We have massive plans. We want to be”-he corrects himself “we’re convinced we will be the dominant player in Europe within a reasonable time frame. We want to be number one in hosting domain-based products world- wide…” And Drummond looks really excited.
Feeling Virtual : Drummond sees his company as a dominant player in Europe and the number one in hosting domain-based products worldwide Picture : JIM WINSLET
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